The solar panel industry is fighting physics’ stubborn hold on the secrets of photons exciting electrons – and the results of this atomic level focus are showing up for regular people.

A trio of solar efficiency records have been brought forward recently: Hanergy’s thin film unit developed a 25% solar panel, Trina Solar broke 25% with an IBC solar cell, and a lab in Europe has set an amazing record of a 26% solar cell using a standard, simple ‘p-type’ technology.

The Trump administration released its official ruling regarding the Suniva Section 201 case, and stated that they agree that the nation’s solar industry has taken damage as a result of global solar actions.

The administration has chosen to impose a 30% tariff on all imported solar cells and solar panels, decreasing 5% a year for four years. The first 2.5GW of solar cells imported will not be tariffed, to protect the domestic solar panel industry.

There were approximately 98GW of solar power installed globally in 2017, versus 70GW in 2016. That represents 40% volume growth in a single year! Woo, yeah!

The top 10 module suppliers delivered about 57GW of those volumes – 58% of the total. Even though these groups mostly tilt toward utility-scale work, here we’ll talk about some of their residential solar panels to get you up to speed.

JA Solar has had their monocrstyalline (mono) passivated emitter rear cell (PERC) panel certified as the highest efficiency model in the market today. The solar panel’s power output was rated at 326.67W, for a panel level efficiency of 19.97%.

JA Solar’s current monoPERC products for sale max out at approximately 300W.

Solartech Universal is a South Florida solar panel manufacturer that started with a family discussion in the kitchen in 2012. Sometime in 2018 or 2019, if all goes well, they’re going to launch a ~24% efficient, 480-500W glass on glass bifacial heterojunction solar panel for the commercial and utility-scale solar market.

Solartech Universal started shipping in January of 2016 and currently has 80-85MW of annual manufacturing capacity, plus they’re hiring.

SunPower’s stock jumped 12% on Monday partially because an analyst is highly impressed with the sales opportunity of the P Series solar panel.

The solar panel raises efficiency partially through the use of a weird $9 trick – shingling solar cells – to maximize direct sunlight on silicon. The new panel could be built in the world’s largest capacity solar panel factory.

LG is pushing out their upgraded “Neon R” and “Neon AC” solar panels to the residential solar market in the USA. The Neon R peaks at 365W and 21.1% efficiency in a 60 cell format. The Neon AC – with an integrated Enphase Microinverter – peaks at 330W and a 19.3% efficiency.